Continuous welting



P. E. BARBOUR.

CONTINUOUS WELTING.

APPLICATION FILED MAY 20, 1919.

1,834,829. Patented Ma1z23, 1920.

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PERLEY E. BARBOUR, OF BROCKTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

CONTINUOUS WELTING.

App1icaton filed May 20, 1919.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, PERLEY E. HARBOUR, a citizen of the United States, residing at Brockton, in the county of Plymouth and State of Massachusetts, have invented new and useful Improvements in Continuous VVelting, of which the following is a specification.

The present invention relates to welting for boots and shoes, and its ultimate purpose is to eliminate the waste of welting which occurs in shoe factories. In the commercial manufacture of welted shoes with the aid of machinery it has become the established practice to provide welting in the form of long strips, the length of which may be, for example, fifty yards more or less, and to cause such strip to be applied to a shoe at the proper stage in the course of its making; so much of the strip as is needed to furnish a complete welt being cut oft at the end of the step of applying it to a shoe, and a successive lengths being thus appliedto a sue cession of shoes until the original. strip is exhausted. Onaccou-nt of the variation in styles and sizes of shoes and in the methods of different operatives, it is impossible in economical commercial. practice to furnish the welting strips in such lengths that they will supply an exact number of 'welts, and it usually happens that when the welt strip has been used up there is a remaining end which may have a lengthof anything from an inch or two up to almost but not quite enough to furnish a complete welt, and these ends have prior to the advent of the present invention "been waste material. If occa sionally there should be no renmant from a welting strip this is an accidental result of very rare occurrence. Probably the average length of remnants is about ten or eleven inches; and the total amount of waste resulting from the cause stated in large factories is a substantial item.

The primary object of the invention is to eliminate this waste by enabling the remnant ends of such welting strips to be economically used as parts of. complete welts; and this object is accomplished by furnishing the welting strips ready for use with one or both ends scarfed and provided with adhesive, whereby the end of a new strip may be joined to and in continuation of the re- Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented llilar. 23, 1920.

Serial No. 298,508.

maining end of a used strip. A further object is to combine with the welting strip so n'epared, a suitable protector for the scarfed and adhesively prepared ends or end whereby the adhesive thereon may be kept in good condition and may be prevented. from sticking to other objects. On account of the capability aiforded by this invention for connecting separate welting strips in continuation one with another I have entitled the invention Continuous welting, intending to convey by this title the idea that each strip made in accordance with the invention is the potential continuation of another strip.

I have illustrated the preferred form of the invention in the drawings furnished herewith, and in such drawings, Figure 1 is a perspective view of a welt strip wound in the form of a hank and having scarfed, cemented, and protected ends in accordance with this invention. Fig. 2 is a top plan view of one end of the welt strip. Fig. 3 .isa longitudinal section on line 3--3 of Fig. 2. Fig. 4: is a similar view of the opposite end of the welting strip. Fig. 5 is a longitudinal section on line 5--5 of l. Fig. 6 is an illustrative perspective sketch showing the manner in which the remnant end of a used strip is joined to the advance end of a fresh strip.

The same reference characters indicate the same parts in all the figures.

lVelting prepared. in accordance with my invention may be put upon the market in several forms, as in a hank, a roll, a coil, or otherwise, wherefore the representation of it in these drawings in hank form is for the purpose only of illustration, and is not a feature of my claim for protection. In accordance with the invention I scarf one or both, preferably both, extremities of the strip. Fig. 2 shows the end or extremity a which is scarfed on its under side; there being thereby formed on the under side of the extremity a beveled surface a tapering to a thin edge 011 the end, the 'top surface be ing intact.

Figs. t and 5 show the opposite end 5 of the strip which is scarfed in such fashion as to provide a beveled surface I) on its up per side, the under side being intact, so far as the act of scarfing is concerned. These till beveled surfaces (6 and Z) are provided with a sufficient amount of adhesive to enable either to stick to the complementally scarfed end of another welting strip when overlapped and brought in contact with such complemental end. Ordinarily the entire beveled surface will be covered or coated with adhesive, but I do not limitmy protection to a welt in which this coating is continuous rather than provided in isolated dots or patches. Preferably I'use for this coating a Waterproof cement so that its adhesive quality will not be des'troyed'or substantially lessened by moistening the strip; for welting strips are commonly put in temper by being moistened with water before being applied to shoes. The so called rubber cements such as are available in the open ,market and are already commonly plied and exposed to the air, thus enabling welting strips to be used according to the intention of this invention long after having. been furnished ready for use. I will state, however, that the terms cement, cemented, adhesive, and any other terms of similar meaning used in this specification and in the following claims are intended not as limiting my protection to any particular adhesive, but as typifying and including all adhesive substances which are capable of serving purposes of the invention as herein set forth.

The welting having scarfed and cemented ends as here described may also be further finished ready for use by being beveled along one edge of its top surface as shown at c in Figs. 2 and l, and by being grooved 'in its under surface to receive the stitches of the attaching seam as shown by dotted lines at d in the same figures; or the strip 'may be given any other finished form demanded by makers of shoes.

' The cement coating of the scarfed ends is protected from being harmed by dust and so forth, from premature drying in c011- ma with'the air, and from sticking to adjacent objects, by protectors e, e, which. are placed over the scarfed ends in such manner as to cover the cemented surfaces thereof. Preferably these protectors are envelops or sheaths made in such form as to be capable of slipping over, or in other words, receiving, the scarfed ends, and of then surrounding and embracing such ends; and preferably also they are made of a material which iseither so little adherent to the cement coating, or is so tough that it maybe stripped off when the strip is to be used, without leavingfragments permanently adhering tothe cemented surfacesand'thus diminishing the power of adhesion of the coating thereon. I have found the commonly used so-called waxed paper or waxiue paper a suitable material for these protectors and prefer to use envelops made of such paper. Paper of this description is so repellent to penetration by the cement coating that, while it lightly adheres to the coating and is thereby retained in place securely enough until the time of use, it may easily be completely removed. I would have it understood, however, that I do not limit my protection to any specific material for the protector, or to the construction of the protector as a sheath or envelop or wrapper, rather than as a sheet laid on the cemented side only of the welting strip.

In making use of the invention the beginning end of a new welting strip is lapped over the remnant end of a preceding strip before the latter has been completely used up, care being taken, of course, to see that that end of the new strip which is com plemental to the remnant extremity of the preceding strip is taken as the beginning end. These scarfed ends are matched and laid one upon another and pressed together, whereby the cement coatings of both coalesce and unite the two strips into a single continuous strip, with such firmness that the last or remnant end of the preceding used strip is able to pull the new strip through the guide of the inseam stitching machine and on into the position on the shoe where it completes the welt of which said remnant end is an incomplete part. Fig. 6 shows clearly the manner in which the complemental ends of these strips are or may he joined by the workman in the course of applying welting to shoes for the purposes as set forth.

I would observe further that the invention may be embodied in a welt-ing strip of which only one end is thus scarfed and comented, but in that case the strip can be used only in continuation of one having a properly complemental extremity. It is preferable, therefore, to scarf and cement both ends of the strip, giving to the opposite ends opposite or complemental characters of scarfing, whereby each strip thus prepared is complemental to and adapted to be joined with any other like strip in continuation thereof.

The terms scarf and scarfed as here used include any form of cutting or beveling the extremity of a strip in such manner as to match a complementally cut or beveled end whereby two ends may be lapped and joined to make one strip a proper continuation of the other.

What I claim and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

1. A welt strip long enough to furnish a plurality of complete welts having a scarfed end and bearing adhesive on the beveled surface 01 such scarl'ed end, and a detachable protective covering on said scarfed'end.

2. A \velt strip long enough to furnish a 5 plurality of complete welts having a scarfed end and bearing adhesive on the beveled surface of such scarled end, and a protective covering 011 said scarfed end made of ma terial repellent to penetration by the adhesive whereby such covering is readily rcmovable.

In testimony whereof I have affixed my signature.

PER-LE1 E. HARBOUR. 

